A user may concurrently access a database server. The user may execute different workloads with different demands on the database server. For example, one user may perform a short-running lookup query requiring a quick response time from the database server. In contrast, other users may perform a long-running query demanding high disk throughput from the system, as is common for decision support queries. The user may want to prioritize certain tasks and/or activities of a distributed database system. The user may want to control how a set of resources are allocated in the distributed database system. A set of activities may contend for a set of limited resources (i.e. CPU, memory, disk, network, etc.). The user may want to speed up certain processes and/or activities but may have no way to do so. As a result a set of key processes and/or activities may run slower than desired and decrease an efficiency of the system or cause it to crash.